Interview With Astro Gaming
As most of SIXAXIS’s competitive members know, Astro Gaming was the sponsor of our Black Ops 1 v 1 ladder. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to talk with Jordan Reiss, Astro’s Co-Founder and current VP, a while back and thank him for their support and get to know them a bit better.
D: As you know, 6A has been running a Black Ops 1 v 1 ladder proudly sponsored by yourself and Astro Gaming. On behalf of 6A staff and its members, we would like to thank you for your support. The ladder had 149 players sign up, several hundred matches played, with the top 16 going through to the finals. In the end it came down to denz vs ab69r, with “denz” taking out the win 3 – 1.
J: Our pleasure, Andy. Happy to do what we can to support you guys.
D: Since your sponsorship of the 1 v 1 ladder, we have seen chatter in threads and posts on 6A about your products rise enormously. What influence has the Call of Duty series had on the growth of your business?
J: The popularity of Call of Duty, and FPS genre in general, has certainly been a boon for our business. You might have seen that we recently sponsored Activision’s Call of Duty XP event, which had $1M of prize money up for grabs, a musical performance by Kanye West, and close to 1,000 gaming stations set up, each complete with an Astro Headset and MixAmp. So yeah, we’re huge fans of Call of Duty, and do what we can to support the community.
The Headset/MixAmp Combo
D: Are there any new Astro products or 2012 editions to look forward to this holiday season?
J: Well, no one’s stepped up to buy any of the $999.95 Solid Gold A40’s we launched in April, so we’re going back to the drawing board…. In all seriousness, I do see new A40 colors on the near-term horizon – rumor has it there could be as many of seven different A40 colors available over the holidays. But, as always, our colored editions will only be made in limited quantities. Other than that we’ll just have to wait and see for what 2012 brings us.
D: How did Astro Gaming get started and when?
J: I wrote the first business plan for Astro Gaming sometime in the middle 2005. It was right before the Xbox 360 was going to launch, the PS3 was coming down the pike and we felt like the accessories market was being totally overlooked. In our opinion, at least back then, console accessories were nothing more than cheap plastic toys, mired in mediocrity. As “adults” who gamed (and I do use the term adults loosely), we felt there was a market for people like us who appreciated product quality and design.
My partner Brett Lovelady was the CEO of Astro Studios and had some of the world’s most talented product designers at his fingertips (check out www.astrostudios.com for more on that biz) and I had a strong background in ecommerce from my days running Timbuk2 Design’s ecommerce business. So we decided to combine forces and launch a direct-to-consumer gaming brand. We received our first round of VC funding in 2006 and it was off to the races from there.
D: What do you think about the current state of competitive console gaming?
J: It’s in an interesting spot, if you’re referring to organized, play-for-money gaming. There’s a long way to go for competitive console gaming to really take root. You need a *lot* more viewers and sponsors to make it economically feasible in the long term. Folks like the MLG are giving it their all to make it happen, and we’ve been working with them now for six straight seasons. So we’ve seen some awesome gains made over the years. Now that the MLG has brought Starcraft II into the fold and you see the console crowds being dwarfed by the Starcraft fans, it’s become pretty apparent to me that something needs to change if people want competitive console gaming to really take root globally.
Competitive gaming depends on corporate sponsorship and viewing eyeballs – and making FPS games spectator friendly is not easy. At least not for the uninformed spectator – and that’s key. How do you get more people to want to *watch* gaming. The good news is that there an awesome growing awareness of e-sports in general right now, all around the globe. The PC guys have been doing it professionally for a long time and can draw huge numbers globally, I think there’s a lot to learn from them. One thing I’m sure of is that e-sports isn’t going away, it’s just a question of what platforms, what titles and what venues take root.
Still mainly the realm of the PC gamer, though consoles are on the rise
D: One of our long time founders and administrators “Johnny Blitzkrieg” been missing for a while. Have you seen him?
J: Hah. We’ve got a host of shady characters living in the nooks and crannies of the neighbourhood around Astro. We don’t know where they come from or who they are. Just that they seem to share a love of cardboard boxes, Mad Dog 20/20 and late night parking lot parties…not to mention a strong disinclination towards showering. If one of these guys could be your boy, let me know – I’m happy to return him home to ya.
(Update: Thanks, Jordan, for sending him home showered and shaved, We will try not to let him stray to far next time)
D: Personally, Jordan, what’s your favourite game and what new games are you most looking forward in the next 6 months?
J: Never have time to play any more. Love RTS games though, and the standard COD, Halo FPS games. I just am so out of practice it’s almost no fun any more. Surfing and snowboarding (and spending time with my fiancé) are how I spend any free time these days.
6A would like to thank Jordan for donating his time for this interview.
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